The present invention relates to control of a mailbox as a mail accumulating unit in an electronic mail system for exchanging information such as characters and voice in the form of electronic mail between terminals such as personal computers through a computer network.
In a conventional electronic mail system as shown in FIG. 16, upon issuance of a mail transmission request from a user, a mail server 30 accumulates mail in a mailbox 32 prepared for each user ID indicated in the destination address of the mail. A user can read the mail sent thereto from the mailbox 32 corresponding to the user ID. When a plurality of items of mail are accumulated in the mailbox 32, these are indicated in the form of a list, and the contents of the selected items of mail are read out. Since the mail server 30 is formed of an external memory, if the amount of mail exceeds the specified capacity of the mailbox 32, a portion of this mail is no longer accumulated and dispersed.
Electronic mail systems are used for a variety of application purposes and for private and business messages. Moreover, the same electronic mail can be transmitted to a plurality of destination addresses, due to the general address function in which the same mail can be stored in a plurality of mailboxes. As a result, an online shopping system provider can transmit electronic mail for product publicity (e.g., electronic mail advertisements) to a plurality of users.
In such conventional electronic mail systems, since a user receives electronic mail transmitted for various application purposes, it often happens that a large amount of electronic mail publicity or advertisements exceed the specified capacity of the user""s mailbox, so that important mail other than publicity mail or advertisements cannot be received. Therefore, there is a need to avoid this non-receiving condition for electronic mail.
Moreover, a list of the received mail indicates only the titles of the mail received, resulting in a problem in that the application purpose and importance of the mail (e.g., business or advertising) cannot be understood until the mail is received and its contents checked.
It is an object of the present invention to overcome the above-described problems of prior art electronic mail systems.
FIG. 1 is a schematic diagram of a system in accordance with the present invention which solves the problems of prior art systems explained above.
In order to solve the above problems, the present invention provides an electronic mail system for exchanging electronic mail between terminals via a network 16, comprising mailboxes 20, 23, 24 for storing messages for each mail ID 21 and corresponding class 22 of mail content preset for each user of the electronic mail system. User terminals 10, 13 are mail terminals which have mail transmitting units 11, 14 for requesting transmission of items of mail by designating, at the time of electronic mail transmission, the mail ID 21 indicating the transmission destination address, the class 22 of mail content and the message content. A mail server 17 has a mail storing unit 18 to store items of mail in the mailboxes 20, 23, 24 corresponding to the mail ID and class of mail designated by the user terminal which transmits the mail. Moreover, the electronic mail system of the present invention also comprises user terminals having mail receiving units 12, 15 to request, at the time of receiving electronic mail, forwarding of mail to the mail server 17 by designating the mail ID 21 and class 22 of mail contents. The mail received from the server 17 is read out by a mail reading unit 19 which reads, upon reception of an instruction for the mail ID 21 and class 22 of the mail content, the mail from one of the mailboxes 20, 23, 24 corresponding to the designated mail ID 21 and class 22 of mail.
These together with other objects and advantages which will be subsequently apparent, reside in the details of the construction and operation as more fully hereinafter described and claimed, reference being had to the accompanying drawings forming a part hereof, wherein like numerals refer to like parts throughout.